Vancouver is so beautiful and the weather is so perfect at this time of the year, leaving her is not an easy thing to do. Nonetheless, the lure of bountiful amounts of seasonal, perfectly ripe, tropical fruit is strong enough to draw these two vegans half way around the world to Thailand.

Every time Brenda and I visit Thailand over the winter months, our friends who live there go on endlessly about how much better the fruit is in May and June. According to one of our acquaintances, the winter mangoes, which we find succulent and delicious, are so tasteless she refuses to buy them.

Last winter we were unable to leave Vancouver while the renovations to our condo, which were scheduled to be completed by October 31, dragged on well into the New Year. Being deprived of our annual escape from Canadian winters, we decided we'd switch things up this year and do a warm weather getaway.

The plan is to spend a couple of days in Bangkok, where we'll celebrate Brenda's birthday, then travel south to Koh Samui to spend a week on the beach and then slow travel north around the gulf of Thailand up into the area known as Thailand's fruit bowl. All the exotic tropical fruits mentioned earlier will be at the height of their season and we can't wait to gorge ourselves on the king and queen of fruit, durian and mangosteen. We're hoping that our hotel won't have any restriction on bringing the notoriously odorific durian into our room, as is often the case in many areas of Asia.

So off we go to YVR for our 10:35 flight to Bangkok with stops in Seattle and Tokyo. We'll arrive in Bangkok Thursday evening at 11:00PM after losing 14 hours in time zone changes. A long trek, but it'll be well worth it.Read more